Golf is becoming a game which increases in popularity on a daily basis. One part of the game which can be practiced almost anywhere is putting. Accordingly, there are many different putting practice aids presently available in the marketplace. Some of these aids are in the form of small cup like members which a person places on a carpeted surface or the like. These cup like structures are generally in the form of a center hole surrounded by a ramped wall that must be cleared to get the ball in the cup. If a ball putted at this type of aid does not clear the ramped wall into the center hole it will roll by the aid and must be retrieved by the person who is using the aid for putting practice. This is often the case because these types of aids are generally very small and hard to accurately hit with a putt. Not only can they be frustrating from this standpoint but additionally they are quite boring to use.
A more interesting type of putting aid which is also readily available in the market is one which includes an electrically operated plunger which acts as a ball return to eject a ball putted into the aid back to a person using this type of aid. However, this type of automatic ball return putting aid or practice member suffers from the drawback that it has an extremely wide or forgiving mouth opening which funnels a ball hit into the practice member to the plunger. Therefore there is very little skill level required to use this type of ball return putting aid which is in no way representative of the skill level required for real putting on a golf course green. Furthermore this type of aid is usually extremely light in weight and will bounce around with each use of the plunger on the surface where it is supported.
Another type of putting practice aid which has been more recently made available to the public is in the form of a portable simulated green having one or more regulation sized openings in the putting aid. These practice greens are made from a roll up mat of carpet material which allows their use on all different types of surfaces including non carpeted surfaces. They require much more accuracy than the electrically operated ball return aid described above because they use regulation sized putting holes but they suffer from the drawback that they distort when they are rolled up and not in use. They do not have sufficient weight to flatten the distortions when they are unrolled for further use and as such a person using them has to putt over bumps and folds in the carpet material.
There is currently nothing available in the marketplace having a solid heavy duty construction which can be used on a carpeted surface or on a non carpeted surface and having different skill level requirements for putting practice. There is further nothing currently available in the way of a putting practice aid which can be used both for putting practice and game playing purposes.